


Secessio Plebis

by CosmicCthulhu



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Voldemort, Anarchy, Celtic Mythology & Folklore, Evil Author Day, F/M, Hermione Granger is So Done, House Elves, Humor, Light Angst, Not Beta Read, Not Canon Compliant, One Night Stands, Sexual Content, Slytherins Being Slytherins, Swearing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-17 15:22:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29473911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CosmicCthulhu/pseuds/CosmicCthulhu
Summary: The House Elves have gone amok, and the wizarding world finds out the hard way just how important and how powerful they can really be.Hopefully, Hermione can fix this mess. She even has some unexpected helpers!
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	Secessio Plebis

**Author's Note:**

> This was actually sitting in my folder for a while (which is why the writing is so rough)! I don't really feel the inspiration nor do I have the motivation to continue it, but I also don't want to just delete it forever :,D
> 
> I appreciate all comments and kudos I get!
> 
> English is not my first language, and this work is unbeta'd so all errors are my own.
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own any part of the Harry Potter franchise.

_ ELVES FOUND DEAD ON WRIGHT'S HOUSEHOLD _

_ Last night, the bodies of four house elves were unearthed from Lord’s Wright’s garden by a hungry stray dog and several witnesses recall the foul odor coming from his household in the previous weeks. Neighbors claim that Lord Wright would often lash out, harm and yell at the elves, but had been unusually quiet as of late. _

_ When questioned, Lord Wright refused to give a solid motive and merely stated that he’d search for new servants in the morning. He is currently being tried for the mistreatment and neglect of his house elves, and if convicted, he may face six months of community service. _

“A tragedy! A tragedy!” The little creature cried out, holding the papers in her hands and running to the appointed meeting grounds, in the basements of a dingy pub.

“You is reading the news?” Another voice called out, and she could only nod with tears falling freely from her eyes. She looked around the dark room, finding hundreds of pairs of glowing eyes watching her descend the stairs.

“They kills Blinky, Winky, Willy and Bitsy,” another voice announced sadly, while the first creature, by the request of many, started reading out loud the papers she had stolen from her household.

“I told you so,” a gruffy and loud voice yelled from the back of the pub, making his way to the improvised podium and calling for the attention of the other creatures. “We continue to die and suffer in the hands of the wizardkind!” 

“But they be masters!” Some of them cried.

“They are tirants!” He rebuffed with a scowl, taking the papers from his friend’s hands and waving them to the crowd. 

“We leave tonight,” his friend called out by his side, wiping her tears with shaking hands. Her softer voice was better accepted by the others anyway, and the way she spoke with a calm, but confident demeanor inspired them to agree with her.

“We be leaving tonight!” The crowd agreed. Some of them wanted to disagree, but they had been discussing this as a group for months now. And some have been thinking about this on their own for years, as well.

“We’ll make them beg for us to be back!” The gruffy voice repeated, with enthusiastic nods coming from his friend.

“Sic Semper Tyrannis!” His voice echoed in the basement, beckoning his peers to repeat the motto.

“Sic Semper Tyrannis!”

\-----

Draco woke up with an angered groan and an awful headache hammering against his head, as he remembered his wild night out with his friends, drinking and partying until they eventually blacked out. 

It certainly had been a good night, and he would be sure to talk to Blaise to ask him if he knew by any chance what was the name of the witch that the blond wizard had hooked up with at the end of the party. 

He’s not surprised that the woman left his bed before he woke up, but he wasn’t exactly pleased, either. He quite wished she stayed the morning for a repeat performance, considering how good she felt the previous night.

The wizard wished he could remember her name. Hell, he wished he could remember her  _ face  _ or anything else that could help him figure out her identity for that matter, but Draco couldn’t really recall anything about her aside from the mind-blowing sex that they had indulged in at the early hours of the morning. 

And well, as curious as he was about the mysterious witch, Draco was also aware of the horrible light that was currently hitting his sore eyes and pale face. Blasted sun and his ever present luminosity… Why were the curtains left open anyway? Had the elves forgotten their duties?

“Missy!” Draco bellowed out for his personal house elf. She was definitely going to get a dressing down for forgetting the curtains, but he needed a hangover potion before that and he also needed her to announce to the other elves that their master desired for breakfast in bed.

One.. Two… Three seconds and still no sign of the little greyish elf. He waited ten more seconds, maybe she was caught up with cleaning his robes? He remembered that some stupid bloke had accidentaly splashed firewhiskey on them the night before and he was sure they smelled fowl because of that.

“MISSY!” He called out for her again, louder and more urgently, as a way to show her that he was more important than the dirty robes, but no elf appeared before him, still.

The wizard sunk back into the silken blankets, cursing under his breath and already planning all sorts of punishment for the lazy elf. He really hoped the elf would come soon, considering that he was so ill he didn’t think it’d be possible to walk all the way to his bathroom for the headache potion.

“Missy, if you don’t show up, I’m going to force you to feed the peacocks for a month!” He yelled again after a minute of silence. He smirked despite himself, imagining the widened eyes of the creature, knowing full well how rabid those blasted birds could be. There wasn’t a single elf in the Manor that liked the peacocks, making them the perfect punishment.

Yet, no frightened elf came.

That was strange. And quite possibly concerning.

Was Missy alright? She didn’t seem sick the night before, she was quite lively and chirpy, actually. Much like all the other elves for that matter. One could even argue that they were WAY too happy and chirpy than usual, in fact.

“Foopy!” He called instead, expecting the main cook to cater to his personal needs, but much like his colleague, he didn’t appear either.

“What in the world…” he muttered out loud, summoning the strength to get up from his bed and shuffle towards his bathroom so that he could chug down the potion down his throat to properly investigate his absent elves.

“Missy! Foopy! Garry! Mipsy! Rusty!” Draco called out for all of his elves, while walking down the long and empty hallways of the gigantic Manor. And while the imposing structure had always been quiet by the lack of people, he was pretty sure he could hear the elves bustling about every now and again, except for that morning.

The silence was almost unnerving.

He trudged on the hallways, trying to ignore the feeling of dread sinking to the pit of his stomach, idly remembering the piece of news on yesterday’s paper that had barely been a little footnote on the issue. Did someone kill his house elves, perhaps? Maybe that Wright fellow decided to kidnap Draco’s servants, now that he had done away with his.

He hoped his elves were okay. Maybe they were just preparing a hearty breakfast for him, knowing how drunk he had been the night before, and they simply lost track of time. 

A slim chance at that, Draco knew, but a wizard could hope.

He reached the kitchen and his fears were confirmed when he saw it was empty, not a single item of food had been prepared, for his desperation. Because well, aside from being worried, the wizard was also starving.

“What the hell am I supposed to eat now!” He cried, cursing himself for never bothering to learn how to cook. The wizard opened a few drawers and cabinets, frowning at the eggs he found and humming to himself that he was probably competent enough to fry some for breakfast.

\-----

“Draco! I think someone kidnapped all my elves,” Theo called out for his friend, stepping into the Manor through the floo and running. He looked around the drawing room, realizing that the blond wizard wasn’t lounging there as he normally was. 

He searched in several other rooms, realizing how ridiculously large the Malfoy Manor was compared to his own manor, and only then had Theo realized that a dutiful house elf should have appeared by now, so that it could direct him to the master of the house. “Damn it, where is he?”

He opened yet another door, and though he didn’t find the wizard, he did find his large eagle-owl. Thinking quickly, he handed the bird a quick scrawl and let it fly through the estate, to deliver a letter for its master on its own home.

A minute later, the owl flew back to the room, with a note attached to its leg that simply said ‘Elf’s Kitchen’ in Draco’s handwriting.

“Lazy git,” Theo murmured, walking in a hurried pace towards the smaller kitchen in the Manor.

Soon enough, he found the proud and wealthy Lord Malfoy looking frustrated and small sitting on a tiny wooden table in front of a plate with a charred black… thing on it.

“What the hell is that?”

“Eggs.”

“Did you cast fiendfyre and avada’ed them for good measure?”

“What the hell do you want, Theo?” Draco bit out, throwing the burned eggs in the trash with more force than necessary.

“My elves are gone,” the darker haired wizard cried out, remembering why he had run all the way to his friend’s Manor.

“Yours too?” The blond mused, quickly explaining that he didn’t know where his own elves were, hence why he was eating cremated ashes of eggs.

“Draco,” a third voice rang out from the hallways, as Blaise entered the kitchen, following the same disgruntled eagle-owl. The tall man looked at the pair and he looked more somber then usual. “Something happened to my elves, they are gone!”

“So are mine and Theo’s,” he grumbled, getting out of the kitchen to walk back into his room so that he could put on better robes. “We’re going to the Ministry to find out what is happening.”

“And we should get breakfast on the way, I’m starving,” Theo commented, and his friends agreed that none had had their meals yet. Apparently, there wasn’t a single pureblood heir that knew how to at least fry a damn egg.

“And why do you smell like a campfire?” Blaise asked the blond wizard with a raised eyebrow, who in turn, merely groaned and cast scourgify on himself while Theo cackled in amusement.

\-----

“You better arrange me new elves this instant!” The screechy voice of the plump old lady gritted on Hermione’s nerves. “I have two young daughters soon to be married and I need elves to prepare for the weddings!”

“Lady Greengrass, please understand-” the brunette tried to start, calmly, but the blonde was already raising her voice.

“YOU BETTER HAVE THEM BY THIS AFTERNOON, MISSY! Merlins knows how you mud-”

“Will I have to call the aurors, Lady Greegrass?” Hermione cut her off with a dangerous glint in her eye.

“No, of course not... Miss Granger. I’ll be on my way,” she said after a minute, raising her chin and wobbling away from the muggleborn’s office. 

Just as the older witch opened the door, Hermione saw three more figures rushing towards her tiny room and judging by their fancy shimmering robes, they were yet more entitled purebloods, probably going to demand her to solve a problem that was way out of her area of expertise.

“Miss Granger, there are three gentlemen wishing to see you,” her secretary, a young blonde witch, fresh out of Hogwarts announced with an overenthusiastic voice that irritated the brunette profusely.

“Yeah, I’m not blind Penny,” she bit out, letting the wizards in with a scowl. They were going to be the seventh group of visitors that morning and she hadn’t even had her coffee yet because she was so utterly swarmed by unorganized paperwork.

The woman groaned louder when she took a proper look on them, and realized that she was going to deal with the Slytherin trio that tormented her childhood. 

Worser yet, the night before she had done... Unspeakable things to the taller of the three and she struggled to look at him directly, instead settling her gaze to the wallpaper behind them while also blushing deeply. 

The scenes of their time together flashed out, and she cursed her stupid lascivious brain for betrating her at that moment. But well, at least Malfoy was even drunker than her back then, and he’d probably not remember much of what happened anyway. 

And well, if he had any memories of her naked and writhing under him, he certainly didn’t show it, considering he was scowling just as much as she was.

Zabini, however, wasn’t above smirking deviously when looking at her. "Did you enjoy the party last night, Granger?"

Damn it, he knew. How mortifying

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” just play dumb. Maybe they won’t notice?

“I’m sure you do. Last I saw you, you were climbing my friend here like a fucking tree,” he quipped, pointing to a now confused Malfoy.

“Wait, that was Granger?” The blond man widened his eyes, staring at the now extremely flustered witch. Either he was completely wasted that night, or he was playing even dumber than her and he was a hell of a good actor.

“Just tell me what the hell do you three want!”

“Are you the Head of this Department, Miss Granger?” Nott spoke up, stepping in front of a bewildered Malfoy and an amused Zabini. And wow, it seems like  _ everyone _ decided to play dumb that morning.

She huffed and rolled her eyes at the question. Her irritation quickly replaced her earlier embarrassment. “Why yes, Lord Nott. If you knew how to read, you’d have seen in rather large letters the words ‘Department Head’ written on the door. So, what happened?”

The trio glared at her and Nott opened his mouth to probably explain the situation, but Hermione raised her hand and cut him off before he could mutter a word.

“Actually, don’t say anything. Let me guess, your house elves are missing.”

The trio wordlessly nodded, and the brunette felt a mild urge to bash her head against the wall. “Well, so does everyone else’s!”

Her entire morning was centred around this strange and apparent disappearance of  _ all _ the house elves from  _ Britain  _ and she couldn’t even properly analyse the situation because she had wasted her entire morning listening to angry wizards and witches complaining about it and demanding her new elves as if she was able to pull them out of a hat! 

Good Godric, Hermione wasn’t even sure where to start!

Even the Ministry was suffering the elven disappearance. The files were largely handled and archived by the little creatures, and so was the cafeteria and the general cleaning of the offices and facilities and all of the dutiful creatures were also gone when morning came, leaving the structure in disarray.

Now she had to deal with scattered files, stale coffee and messy desks all the while trying to figure out a solution for a mystery that happened overnight. 

It’s been a mere morning yet the whole Ministry was already falling apart by the absence of the creatures and now she had to deal with that before she lost her job and was murdered as an act of misguided revenge by some lunatic pureblood.

Merlin, she should have been a librarian. It would have been so much simpler!

“Well, I’m going to tell you three the same thing I’ve told everyone that barged in this office today! There’s nothing I can do! Please go away and go piss off someone else!”

“I would say you needed to get laid, Granger,” Blaise stared at her, and continued with a growing smirk when she flushed deeply. “But clearly that wasn’t the problem.”

“Miss Granger,” Penny opened the door again, stopping the brunette from shouting at the sniggering trio. “You have another visitor.”

“Can you tell them to fuck off?” She barked out loudly at the kid. 

“Well, that’d be extremely rude, Miss Granger,” another voice came from outside her office, and much to her horror, it was the familiar voice of her former professor and now HeadMistress of Hogwarts, MinervaMcGonagall herself. 

“Oh my God!” Hermione blanched, considering if she should throw herself at the HeadMistress feet and beg for forgiveness. Instead, she pointed at the former Slytherin’s trio “I’m so sorry, professor! It’s been such a difficult morning!”

“Ah, I see. No harm done,” the older witch nodded to her, letting herself in. 

“What brings you here Professor?” She asked with a sweetened voice, pulling out some mugs from a cabinet to offer her some tea.

“Well-”

“Let us guess, professor,” Malfoy cut her off with a frown. “The Hogwarts’ elves are missing.”

She nodded solemnly at his assumption, but she also pulled out an envelope, handing it to the brunette witch. “But I’m afraid it’s not only that.”

Hermione gingerly opened the yellow envelope, to see what was inside. The three other alumni huddled to her side to catch a glance at the three photos that were stored within and gasped in surprise at the contents while McGonagall remained quiet.

“I don’t understand,” Hermione frowned, inspecting the photos.

The first one was an aerial view, taken from the back of a hippogriff. It depicted the green mountains of the Scottish Highlands, somewhere Hermione was sure that it was near Hogwarts. Nested between the rocks and plains was a huge structure made of what seemed like stone and wood that the witch couldn’t recall she had ever seen.

In the second photo, the hippogriff had landed near the structure and the photographer dismounted the beast, approaching the stone walls and raising the camera to show a couple of angry elves glaring at them.

But the third photo is what shocked them all. It showed the elves soundlessly shouting at the photographer, before taking rocks, sticks and hurling spells at them, making them fall to the ground, and startle the hippogriff.

“These were all taken by Filch this morning,” McGonagall explained to the group. “There had been a commotion among the centaurs and when they asked us to investigate, this is what we found.”

“The elves attacked Filch?” Hermione asked, watching the third photo.

“Yes, and they attacked the few professors I’ve sent to look further into it. They even tried to throw hexes and curses at me, if you can imagine.”

“This is outrageous!” Theo cried out in horror.

“What happened? Have all the elves gone mad?” Blaise muttered in turn.

“Miss Granger, you have another visitor,” Penny called out for her, interrupting the group again. Hermione felt like ripping the hair out of her head, but refrained from doing that in front of the HeadMistress she held in such high regards.

“Send them in, Penny.”

“Good morning, Miss Granger,” Kingsley Shacklebolt called for her, entering the office and raising an eyebrow at the crowded room. “I’m afraid we have a crisis at hand.”

“House elves?” Zabini asked the Minister with a deadpan. 

“House elves,” he nodded, and stopped to take a look at the photos Hermione offered him. He seemed just as shocked as the rest of the group. “Have they turned violent?”

“They are throwing rocks and curses at a squib,” Malfoy grumbled under his breath. To be fair, it was rather obvious that they turned violent. 

“We need to deal with this immediately,” Shacklebolt sighed, looking at Hermione and ignoring the rest of the occupants. “And you’ll need auror escorts, by the looks of it.”

“I’ll talk to Harry and Ron, sir,” Hermione nodded at him. “We’ll leave as soon as possible.”

Soon, Shacklebolt and McGonagall left the office, probably going to return to whatever they were doing, and leaving Hermione to deal with all that mess alone.

Well, she wished she was alone, actually.

“We’re going with you Granger,” Malfoy announced, matching her hurried pace with his easily long stride. Cursed be his long legs.

“Why? Don’t you have anything else better to do?”

“We don’t, in fact,” Theo chimed in. “We’re socialites, Granger. We have all the money in the world and far too much time in our hands.”

“So you decided to pester me all morning?”

“So we decided to help you out with this house elf trouble,” the blond wizard clarified instead, getting suspiciously close to her and even brushing his arm occasionally in the busy hallways. 

“And well, it seems like you could use some stress relief later,” he whispered in her ear when he got close enough, making the witch shudder and hold back her breath.

She gulped, trying to hide how nervous she was by his presence. The events of last night still played in her mind, even with all the developments in the problematic elves’ case and truly she wished the man would just leave her alone so that she could wallow in loneliness like a proper single witch.

Instead, he kept up with her pace, making her traitorous brain silently beg for her to push him into the nearest broom closet so that she could feel his taut muscles all over again. But the logical part of her mind kept reminding her that she needed to remain professional and dignified and absolutely ignore the potential thrill of being pressed against a wall with  _ his _ mouth all over her, just like in the previous night.

Oh Merlin, if she kept imagining things like that, she was going to be in trouble.

Thankfully, she reached the Auror’s Headquarters quickly enough before she could do or say anything to the blond wizard she might have regretted later. However, much to her dismay, the Level Two of the Ministry was in as much disarray as the rest of the departments. In fact, it looked even more chaotic than her own office.

She looked around the busy room, looking for a mop of black hair, and found him backed into a corner with a large man standing before him with a deep scowl and apparently yelling something at him.

“You better find my elves, young man! I donate enough galleons for the Ministry to support itself, you know?” She heard the wizard barking out to her friend that surely was too shocked to respond.

“We don’t know what is happening with the elves, Lord Gaunt.”

“Then you better find out quickly! I can’t leave my Mansion unprotected, I have too many enemies waiting to pounce at me!” The wizard grumbled.

“Excuse me sir,” she decided to cut into the conversation before Harry lost his patience. “We’re going to deal with the elves' disappearance, don’t worry.”

“You better have it sorted by the end of the day, missy,” the man sniffed, but a withering glare coming from the auror made the wizard take a step back and get away from them.

“‘Mione, I’m so glad to see you,” Harry breathed out, hugging her friend. “This morning has been hell.”

“Tell me about it,” she grumbled, and the man finally looked at her three companions that were standing idly behind her. She decided to get to the point instead of explaining their presence “I need help dealing with this house elf debacle.”

Harry grimaced, accepting the photos that showed the creatures throwing rocks and hexes at Filch, while Hermione explained everything that she knew to him. 

“I’m going to call Ron and then we can apparate there,” Harry sighed, visibly confused by all that was happening. After a second of silence, he looked at the Slytherin trio with wariness. “And will they come with us?”

“I’m afraid so, Potter,” Malfoy spoke up with a taunting smirk. “Salazar knows how Granger will need all the help she can get. Intelligent help, at that.”

“And you’re sure we can’t get rid of him?” The green-eyed man turned to his friend, who was currently glaring at the blond wizard. 

“If anything, we can use them as human shields,” they heard Ron’s voice approaching the group. When he got closer, Harry handed him the photos, and let the witch explain the situation again to the ginger. 

“Well, I wasn’t expecting that,” the man winced at the aggressive turn the elves had taken. 

“Let’s just be done with this,” Hermione tutted, describing the location that they needed to go. She still had no plans on how to actually deal with the elves, but she knew that she needed to talk to them first before deciding on doing anything.

The group started to walk towards the apparition point, with all of them offering insights and ideas regarding why the elves revolted and how they could possibly deal with this. To her surprise, the Slytherin trio actually seemed sensible enough in some of their theories, and she could certainly appreciate their help in the more... intellectual side of things. 

“GRANGER!” A loud screech echoed through the Ministry’s hallways, with an enraged Pansy Parkinson marching on and shoving people out of her way. “How am I supposed to enjoy Elf-made wine if I don’t have any elves?”

“Oh shit,” Harry said, as he looked over at the woman, and the rest of the group hurried their pace so that they could get to the apparition point faster. Not even the Slytherins wished to deal with Parkinson at all, as they were also practically running towards the exit.

In quick succession, each person apparated away to the location of the photos McGonagall had provided.

\-----

“Well, if that isn’t ominous I don’t know what is,” Blaise deadpanned, having arrived last among the group to the Scottish Highlands. 

The others were currently staring with widened eyes and shocked faces at the tall, sturdy and spiked stone walls that were…  _ decorated _ with a plaque that spelled out  _ SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS _ in… red ink, hopefully.

The wizard approached the others and scrutinized the top of the walls, observing that there were a few elves warily looking at them, with makeshift spears in their hands. 

Well, that wasn’t a good sign.

Hermione sighed in despair, analysing their standoffish behavior. And she hadn’t even started negotiating with them yet!

Blaise, for his part, removed and enlarged a camera from his robes and unceremoniously took several pictures of the settlement. After a few photos, the wizard also pulled out a notebook and a quill, making sure to enchant it so that it would write down all his observations.

“What are you doing?” Malfoy asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Documenting everything,” the dark haired man affirmed with a shrug. But sensing the silent question within everyone’s mind, he clarified “I’m a reporter for the Quibbler.”

“What?” 

“Since when?”

“Ah, great. Now the media is involved?”

“What the fuck is the Quibbler?”

“It’s a hobby,” Zabini responded again, answering absolutely none of their questions.

Hermione shook her head, deciding that she truly didn’t care about whatever identity crisis Blaise was going through in his life, and that it was best to just ignore him for the rest of the mission. The house elves’ one were enough trouble as they were, after all.

“Think about it, Granger,” she heard Blaise calling for her attention with a sly grin. “It’s better to have me reporting everything rather than someone in the likes of that Skeeter.”

Damn it, he did have a point. Maybe she’d need to give him an interview or two about it for good measure. 

By her side, Ron started to move towards the walls with a puffed up chest, and a confident stance, probably wishing to take a better look at the structure while also acting as if the wizards had the upper hand in the situation.

That plan quickly backfired when a dozen elves climbed their walls and started to throw their rocks and hexes at him, and eventually at the rest of the group as well. Thankfully, Harry was agile enough to pull his wand and cast protective spells on the group, with only a stinging hex or two hitting the ginger auror painfully in his leg.

“We just want to talk!” Hermione bellowed, after the elves stopped hurling rocks and spells at them.

“Then talk!” They barked back.

“What are your demands?” Harry asked, taking a step forward and looking at the lined up elves glaring down at the group from their perch at the fortress’ walls.

“We don’t want anything! We already have gotten our freedom!” One of them yelled back with a proud grin.

“We is wanting equal rights!” A couple of other elves added.

“We is wanting anarchy!” Some other elf laughed from further back.

“We is wanting more goats! And heaps of gold!” Another added.

“We is wanting the wizards and witches to serve us instead!” A small voice, coming from what looked like an infant elf called out.

“We is wanting Wright’s head on a stake!” A gravelly voice blurted out in the end.

“Wright?” Harry repeated blinking at the last demand. He smiled in triumph, looking at the rest of the group “Then we have a motive! It’s the death of those four house elves that set everything in motion. If we can properly condemn Wright, we can make them come back.”

“I doubt it,” Malfoy scoffed, looking at the angry creatures and the big red letters and splashes along the walls.

“Yeah, Wright’s more like the straw that broke the camel's back,” Hermione sighed, thinking about the years of abuse and oppression the house elves lived through, despite wizards insisting that they _ loved _ working for them and that most families treated the elves with respect.

Well, a slave is still a slave even if they are loved and love what they do.

She wished she could feel smug about it, maybe shout out ‘I told you so’s to everyone that claimed she was a fool and an utopian. She had always exclaimed that the elves needed to be free and respected and now it seemed like they were going to enforce just that.

Being right felt extremely tiring, much to her surprise.

“We want our lives to matter,” a high pitched voice came from the fortress. 

A female elf was now looking down at the group with a stoic face and the demeanor of an important figure. She was looking right into Hermione’s eyes when she continued. “We want to be regarded as more than simple maids and cooks. We want to feel like we are valued, for once.”

The group stood silent, watching the female elf solemnly nod and hide herself back into the fortress’ walls, leaving them to ponder about her demand. 

After a minute, the brunette spoke up to the other humans by her side. 

“Well… they do have a point,” Hermione blurted out loud for the group that now gaped and frowned at her. “I mean, hers were very logical demands.”

“Oh, Salazar!” Theo cried, turning to Malfoy. “Bringing Granger was a terrible idea! She’s not going to help us get the elves back at all!”

“I’m just saying, Nott!” She scoffed, rolling her eyes. “That it isn’t surprising that this happened.”

“How could we have known?” Malfoy chimed in, towering over her and crossing his arms to snarl. “We’ve had House elves for hundreds of years and nothing has ever happened!”

“Secessio plebis,” the witch scrutinized the man, crossing her arms and glaring at him. For such a handsome wizard, he sure was an asshole. A pity, really.

“What? Is that a spell or something?”

“It’s Roman history,” she clarified, but by the look in all of their faces, she explained further. 

“Muggle Roman history, at least... It was an exercise of power by Rome's plebeian citizens, similar to a general strike. When protesting for rights and for their welfare, the plebs would abandon the city en masse, ceasing their work and leaving the patricians to fend for themselves. It was often effective, too.”

“Fine, and how do we get rid of this?”

Hermione wished she could smack him in the head for being so insensitive, but by the look in everyone else’s faces, they were silently agreeing with Malfoy. Even Harry and Ron, who didn’t even have house elves to begin with, were looking at her with expectant gazes, hoping that she could magically resolve the conflict.

Merlin, she was going to force the lot of them to read Les Miserables when all of this was over. 

Respectfully resisting the urge to sing  _ ‘I dreamed a dream’ _ and  _ ‘Do you hear the people sing’ _ , she turned to the fortress lined with angry elves. She observed them with curious eyes, trying to see any indication that one of them was the main instigator, but apart from that regal-looking female elf, none looked particularly like the ‘mastermind’ of it all.

“Let me speak to your leaders!” Hermione spoke up with a peaceful smile and raised her empty hands, showing she was unarmed. She hoped she could negotiate with whomever called for this riot and that things would be settled before evening.

“NO!” All elves cried in unison. “No leaders! No masters!”

“Well, that makes things way more difficult than what I wished,” the brunette muttered under her breath and the rest of the group looked at her with bleak expressions. After all, she was the one with better chances of peacefully dealing with the elves.

“Can’t you see that this is Hermione Granger?! She’s always been an advocate for your rights!” Ron shouted at them with an angry red hue in his face.

“We know who she is!” An ugly elf with an upturned nose responded with a scowl. “And we know she’s working for the Ministry for five and a half years, yet nothing changed for us! She’s nothing but a big mouthed hag!”

She felt a rush of embarrassment at the jab, knowing that the creatures had a point, though it wasn’t for lack of trying on her part. 

Maybe with this new development she could have the leverage to improve their legislation and expand on their welfare, but truthfully, she doubted the Wizengamont would be keen on approving new rights for the house elves if they were essentially betraying the wizardkind and demanding the blood and head of a wizard.

Still, she straightened up her back and talked to the elf with an even tone. “I want to help you! I’ve been trying to help you for years now, and maybe we can work together to achieve that!”

“We do not speak with tyrants, miss Granger,” the elf with a gravelly voice barked at her. “And we will not obey the likes of wizards any longer. If we’re to talk, it will be on our terms!”

“We may speak to you tomorrow,” that same female elf with a smooth voice returned to the wall, looking at the group of humans and standing closely to her partner. “Wizardkind will spend at least a day without our aid. You must see what it feels like to take our services for granted.”

After her speech, all the elves that were standing by the wall retreated back into their settlements, leaving the humans alone to ponder about their words and demands. 

“We can’t leave it at that,” Harry grumbled in annoyance, getting closer to the stone fortress with his wand raised, ready to protect himself in case they came back with more hexes, but it seems like the creatures decided to leave the wall unguarded. 

The black-haired man stood before the closed wooden gates and stared at the metal handles, probably wondering if they were left accidentally unlocked. Harry shrugged his shoulders and grabbed the handles, deciding to try them anyway.

But as soon as his hands touched the gates, he recoiled in pain, letting out an anguished scream and jumping away from the walls while holding his hands next to his chest.

“Harry!” Hermione gasped, approaching the man and guiding him away from the structure. She looked at his hands that were now blistered and red as if they had been severely burned.

“Let me see them,” Malfoy calmly approached the auror, examining the hands with a clinical eye, and muttering a spell while pointing his wand at the wounds. In less than a minute, the blisters subsided and the hands seemed less inflamed now. 

The group looked at the blond wizard in surprise, wondering how did he know such an effective healing spell such as that.

“I have healer training,” he shrugged his shoulders, answering their questioning glares. 

“Wait, am I the only proper socialite among the pureblood society? We don't work, that's beneath us!” Theo whined, also looking at Blaise that was still writing down everything that was happening and taking pictures for his article.

"It’s not work, it's a hobby!" Malfoy insisted, rolling his eyes.

“Wait, my leg is still aching from the stinging hex they threw at me earlier!” Ron looked at the wizard with a scowl. “Why aren't you healing me?”

“You’ll live, Weasley.”

Harry, for his part, thanked Malfoy profusely for the quick spell, while also exclaiming that touching the walls felt as if he had received an electric shock.

“That isn’t surprising,” Blaise pondered, getting close to the fortress without actually touching the walls, and whipping out his wand to cast a detection spell. “It’s elven magic. House elves are useful for housekeeping, of course, but their main responsibilities are to protect the household.”

“And now that all of the elves have banded together in this single ‘ _ household _ ’, the wards are stronger than ever, I presume,” Hermione sighed when the purebloods nodded in unison. 

“Which means that we can’t barge in,” Theo gruffed out. 

“Don’t forget that it also leaves wizarding houses particularly vulnerable,” Malfoy gulped with the rest of the group soberly agreeing.

“So we’re in a stalemate. The elves made it clear that they are not going to be talking to us today,” the dark-haired auror sighed.

“Maybe we can set up a siege? Starve them out until they give up on this riot?” Ron suggested, scratching his ginger stubble with a pensive expression.

The entire group glared silently at the redhead, until Hermione spoke up. “You know they can apparate, right?”

“And we’re just six people, too,” Malfoy added, by her side.

“It was just a suggestion!”

“I suggest we enforce the weasel to remain silent for the rest of the mission.”

“None of you are helping right now!” Hermione cried, making mental notes on how to best proceed with the mission. “Looks like we’ll have to set up camp until the elves decide to talk. And we need to keep an eye on them, anyway.”

“You want us to huddle around in a tent, Granger?” Theo asked, with a horrified expression on his face.

“I have a charmed tent. It’s warm, comfortable and there are different rooms inside so that we don’t need to ‘huddle’. If you don’t like it, you can just go home,” she barked back, and Theo only shrugged with an easy smile. 

“I’m still a very bored man, Granger. Of course I’m staying.”

“Very well, then,” She rolled her eyes, pulling her wand out so that she could quickly apparate back to London to snatch the tent and Harry’s invisible cloak by his request.

\-----

“Pick a room for yourself and make yourself comfortable. This is where we’re staying for the night,” Draco heard Granger announcing as soon as she dropped the unimpressive beige tarp on the floor, mounting it up with her wand.

He rolled his eyes at the ever present whines coming from Theo and followed Blaise and the rest of the group into the tent, nodding in relief when he saw that, although it wasn’t his usual standard of luxury, the tent was certainly comfortable enough to spend a night or two.

The blond wizard turned his head to silently watch the witch pulling some heavy belongings out of a comically tiny beaded bag. To his amusement, he realized that the  _ ministry worker _ had placed an _ illegal _ undetectable extension charm on the bag, probably for the sake of practicality and zeal.

He had spent the entire morning and now early afternoon reconciling the fact that the petite and uptight witch had actually been the gorgeous and energetic lover he had been with the previous night.

However, the more he interacted with her, the more he could see the fire and passion behind her attempts of cold professionalism. Now, he saw it as a fun challenge to get her to break for him, and if he played his card rights, Draco was sure he could make her give in and end up in his bed like they had done the previous night.

So he had spent the entire morning making as many innuendos as he could, offering witty remarks and insights, standing close by and casually touching her as many times as he could, just to make sure that the witch wouldn’t be able to ignore him.

And judging by the way she blushed and held her breath and averted her gaze, he was confident that she was desiring him just as much as he desired her.

The group settled in the tent to plan out the next day and to rest, Draco offered a little help in the kitchen by chopping some vegetables and washing the plates, though he was still miffed by the fact that he had to do lowly work because of rebelling elves.

However, his help had been deliberate. And while he posed as the hard-worker wizard, he also took the opportunity to chat up with the witch that was currently gushing about her time in Hogwarts and her S.P.E.W. crusade, which Draco made sure to input as many favourable opinions as possible. 

And after a few hours, when they had all gone to their respective rooms to sleep and rest for the next day, the man remained awake and waiting with a knowing smirk. Soon enough, the wizard heard soft thuds coming from outside of his room, and smirked to himself, knowing that she had sought him out, after all. 

He pried the door open, before she could even knock or walk away from it. The blond wizard remained silent, letting her enter the room after only a second of hesitation and he revelled on the fact that she was flustered by his presence already. 

“I’m very stressed out,” she announced with a whisper, already fumbling with the buttons of her shirt and directing herself to the large bed on the corner, but then she stopped and bit her lower lip, as if nervous. “Is that offer of stress relief still up?”

“Of course it is,” he chuckled, appreciating the view of her soft skin contrasting against the black lacy bra. “In fact, I was rather looking forward to it.”

“This won’t mean anything,” she clarified, with a breathy sigh, clearly eyeing up his naked chest.  


“Of course, it’s just sex,” he nodded.  


“Exactly, now let me in.”

Not needing to be told twice, Draco pulled the petite brunette into his room, making sure to silence it with his wand. They started to kiss with a fiery passion, delighted by the small moan she muttered when he dragged his lips downwards to the pulse in her neck, smirking in mischief when he started to mark her skin with his teeth, guiding her to the bed and making sure to make the night as enjoyable for her as possible.  



End file.
